Perceptions of Shell Shock and Trench Warfare During World War I, horrendous conditions, both physical and mental, affected the soldiers. The damaging images of death and destruction took their toll on men who lived through war daily. Civilians did not understand why men were diagnosed with shell shock, because they were not fighting for their lives everyday, and they did not want to imagine their loved ones in pain. This led them to question what defines strength and being a man. Men suffering with this disorder were looked down upon, therefore, making it more difficult to have open conversations about mental health and living conditions for soldiers during war. People’s ideas of soldiers and their lives during war differed from how the soldiers …show more content…
Currently referred to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, shell shock was a debilitating condition that causes mental and physical symptoms. Some men were so helplessly affected that they would develop blindness, facial tremors, and suffer from excruciating abdominal cramps and horror filled reoccurring nightmares. However, cases of shell shock ranged from moderate to severe, leaving physicians baffled by the variety of different cases. Ernest Jones, the president of the British Psychoanalytic Association, said that war constituted “an official abrogation of civilized standards,” (qtd. in Bourke) believing that men who suffered from the condition were dealing with a neurotic break rather than a mental illness. Because civilians who were not fighting the war had not seen the horrors of trench life they did not understand it and choose to blame and label the men who were suffering from the illness as “weak”. Many soldiers grew frustrated with not being able to understand what was happening to them and could not explain what they were going through to their families out of fear that they would be looked down upon. Medical doctors eventually found that “everyone has a breaking point: weak or strong, courageous or cowardly, war frightened everyone witless” (qtd. in